The Love Hypothesis – Ali Hazelwood

As a third-year Ph.D. candidate, Olive Smith doesn’t believe in lasting romantic relationships–but her best friend does, and that’s what got her into this situation. Convincing Anh that Olive is dating and well on her way to a happily ever after was always going to take more than hand-wavy Jedi mind tricks: Scientists require proof. So, like any self-respecting biologist, Olive panics and kisses the first man she sees.

That man is none other than Adam Carlsen, a young hotshot professor–and well-known ass. Which is why Olive is positively floored when Stanford’s reigning lab tyrant agrees to keep her charade a secret and be her fake boyfriend. But when a big science conference goes haywire, putting Olive’s career on the Bunsen burner, Adam surprises her again with his unyielding support and even more unyielding… six-pack abs.

Suddenly their little experiment feels dangerously close to combustion. And Olive discovers that the only thing more complicated than a hypothesis on love is putting her own heart under the microscope.

Review:

As someone who has gone through a Biology PhD, lots of the academic situations were familiar and spot on. I could really see myself in Olive, even though my love for academia was officially dead and buried by the time I received my title. (Side note: this is something I’m very sad about actually, because I loved the research and the international community that is academia. I just hated the politics, the uncertainty about the future and the non-existing work-life balance.)

I enjoyed the romance overall, but Olive was a bit too clueless to my liking. That being said, I loved her character seperate from the romance! She was hilarious. I also really like Malcolm and was delighted with his background storyline. The friendship between him, Olive and Ahn was so wholesome, it made me slightly envious. 
I didn’t connect with Adam as much as with the other characters. I was missing some more background, some more depth to his character outside of academics. There were hints of it, but not enough to really draw me in. 

Overall a solid romance novel, which I enjoyed because of the familiarity of the setting. Unfortunately I never encountered any Profs like Adam during my 4 years as a PhD student. Most were definitely about 30 years older 😬

Release Date: September 14th, 2021
Publisher: Berkley Books
Genre: Romance
Pages: 352
Format: Kindle e-book
Source: Bought